


Phil Coulson watches his heroes while they're sleeping

by AKA_Green



Series: Team America [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Gen, Ice, Light Angst, Medical Procedures, Not Beta Read, depictions of people frozen in ice, hints of Steve/Peggy/Bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-12
Updated: 2016-07-12
Packaged: 2018-07-23 15:32:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7469097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AKA_Green/pseuds/AKA_Green
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It took hours, days even, to separate the three frozen bodies to begin the defrost process.</p><p>Phil looked at the separate figures, feeling slightly sickened and slightly awed. His heroes, all three, right here before him and frozen solid.</p><p>Or: Phil Coulson and unconscious/frozen superheros from WWII.</p><p>(set between ch 3 and 4 of Doing What I Can to Get Home (to you))</p>
            </blockquote>





	Phil Coulson watches his heroes while they're sleeping

It took hours, days even, to separate the three frozen bodies to begin the defrost process.

Phil looked at the separate figures, feeling slightly sickened and slightly awed. His heros, all three, right here before him and frozen solid.

Bucky Barnes was sat upright on the table, the ice chipped away from both his sides and his hand outstretched around the empty space where Steve Rogers was previously. The shield in his hand was attached to a support so it’s weight didn’t snap off Barnes remaining arm like an icicle.

The body looked haunted like that, alive. It gave Phil the chills.

Steve Rogers was on the next table, laying mostly stomach down, half his face, poking through the ice, was revealed during the chipping process. His body curved in the frozen coffin, arms limp and awkward by his side in his watery encasings, blue wrapped around him like a blanket.

Phil felt nauseous, like he was in a horror movie. He glanced over at Peggy Carter, the last of the icey figures. She was also upright, but slumped over in her block, most of her right arm and part of her head showing from where it was removed from Barnes side. Her pale face looked almost white through the ice, lips ruby red with lipstick.

Phil swallowed.

“You must be the supervisor from upstairs,” a voice noted from his left. “First time visiting?” 

“Yes,” Phil admitted, looking over at the figure in the white suit that covered him from head to toe, mask hung around his neck and goggles up against the plastic uniform.

“Yeah, it’s pretty creepy,” the defrost professional admitted. “The newbie had to leave to get a grip when we finally split Rogers from Barnes.”

“That I understand,” Phil agreed. “I don’t like it. It looks…” he struggled to find a word.

“Unsettling? Unnerving? Ominous?”

“Yes,” Phil nodded.

“Well, nobody disagrees. And you wanna know what makes it worse?” The doctor gave a cold smirk. “Barnes was probably awake when those two died and he froze.” The doctor gestured to Rogers and Carter.

Phil looked at the man in horror. “What?”

“Yeah, look at the positioning,” the man pointed, one hand on his hip and the other flicking to the bodies. “First off, they all didn’t just fly into that position. It’s unnatural, is what I’m saying.

“And then there’s Rogers and Carter. They’re slumped awkwardly, like they didn’t have any control over comfort or what limbs went where. Therefore they were either dead or unconscious when Barnes dragged them over into a pile by the wall. Probably didn’t want to die alone on the cold floor, or something. Or he thought Rogers and Carter deserved better than kicking the bucket looking like old dolls flung across the room. That's what the psychoanalysts said when they came down to read into it or whatever.”

Phil felt a little faint, but he’s survived worse than a horror story. “Jesus Christ,” he allowed.

“Same thing with the shield, Barnes was covering Rogers with it. It’s pretty common knowledge that Rogers owned the shield, even if he let Carter and Barnes use it in battle as well, so Barnes either took it off Roger’s or grabbed it when he was getting situated.” The Doctor shrugged. “When you know that, it hits home a little harder, is all I’m saying. So what kinda service is being planned for these guys? Any word on it with the guys upstairs?”

“Yes, actually. SHIELD is working on unearthing their dress uniforms from storage. Supposedly they should still be in pretty good shape.” Phil thought of all these of this stiff and frozen figures settled in coffins lined with white cloth, hands crossed over their stomachs. Rogers with his tufts of golden hair and dark green uniform decorated with military medals, Carter with blood red lipstick wearing her snappy green SSR regulation jacket and skirt. Barnes with his single hand settled on his dusty brown Sergeants dress uniform, one empty sleeve along his side. Phil shook the thoughts of funerals out of his head. 

“Turns out they figured out burial situations before the crash too. They all wanted to be buried next to each other in Brooklyn,” Phil continued. “Nobody's sure what to do with the shield though. Sure, we could keep it for testing, but then it feels disrespectful to their memory. Bury it with Rogers? That’d be a waste and his grave might get robbed. Donate it to the Smithsonian and it’ll get stolen in a week.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” the doctor agreed. “Rogers have any relatives? I know all the history books say no, but... well,” the doctor shrugged. 

“No, none.” Phil grimaced. “Only child, no records of a father after birth, mother died when Rogers was in his early twenties, no other relatives.”

“Hmm. Well, it’ll get figured out. Either way. We actually gotta get that off first, if you wanna stick around. You can hold it. Can’t hurt. It’s practically unbreakable,” the man grinned.

Phil felt his heart rate pick up. A chance to hold his hero’s shield? A chance to feel vibranium in his own hands, for Phil to put his arm where Rogers had his?

Wouldn’t miss it for the world.

* * *

It’s better than he imagined and he felt unworthy of it. The shield sings when he flips it around, it’s light too, just about the weight of a two liter bottle of soda.

Feeling another shiver, Phil put it on the table with everything else they stripped from the spots where defrost allowed the doctors to pull personal items out of pockets and holsters. Guns, bullets, a few knives, a radio or two, waterlogged pictures, a compass, a lighter but no cigarettes, three sets of dogtags, a tube of lipstick, a small mirror that’s been shattered, unidentifiable pieces of paper with what might have been sketches, a pencil, a pen, a journal.

Phil wanted to flip through the pages but refrained. Even if it was preserved well enough, he couldn’t invade Roger’s privacy like that, even as a dead man.

He did pick up the pencil, noting with absent amazement the bite marks at the end. Rogers bit his pencil, his teeth marks printed in Dixon pencils permanently.

He knew he shouldn’t feel awe holding a wet pencil pulled out a dead man’s pocket, but it clearly wasn’t stopping him. Putting the pencil down, Phil checked his watch.

It was his lunch break. “I’ll be back to continue observation in half an hour,” Phil said to the doctor he spoke with earlier. Phil’s a bit pleased to see most of the ice gone from the bodies and the group working on making the soldiers to lay down normally rather than sit up like they’re alive.

“You got it, chief. Hey, see if you can get me a muffin form the cafeteria. I’m starved and I know they make blueberry on tuesdays.”

Phil nodded, “I’ll see what I can do.”

* * *

Phil came back thirty minutes later full of mexican food with a large blueberry muffin in a paper bag. He nudged the doctor who requested it and passed it over. The man made a happy sound and withdrew from his work on Barnes.

“Not gonna be the one who has to brush muffin crumbs off a dead national hero,” he muttered, leaning against the wall.

Phil did the same, looking at the three bodies finally laying on their backs. It looked like the rest of the team went to lunch as well, leaving the last doctor to keep an eye on things.

“We’re almost done,” the guy said. “Should have ‘em ready for the coroner by two or something. They’re in remarkable shape for being dead and frozen for nearly seventy years. Usually something gets kinda blackened or shriveled ‘cus of the cold. From a medical standpoint, it’s pretty fascinat-”

And then Rogers jerked forward and choked out a mouthful of water, rolling to the side only enough to spit out water and little bits of ice onto the table.

“Holy fuck-” the guy sputtered, dropping the muffin and running over to Rogers along with Phil.

“Captain? Captain Rogers!” Phil said, hand on the side of the soldiers cold face to get his attention.

Rogers moaned and unfocused blue eyes blinked at him in confusion. His eyes rolled back into his head and he went limp once more.

“Fuck, go and get somebody!’ Phil waved the doctor toward the door or the landline next to the exit. The doctor sped over, dialing and ordering doctors to their area, practically demanding and begging all at once.

And then Agent Carter sputtered and nearly sat up, twisting and leaning over the side of the table to vomit a mouthful of water on the floor. Having that out of her system, she coughed a few times and took after Captain Rogers, slumping over, this time on her side because her wobbling and weak arms gave out. Phil stared, mouth agape.

“What the fuck- just get people down here!’ the doctor shouted into the phone. “EMT’s, doctors, I don’t care!”

Barnes, seized and rolled off the table, gagging and barely managing to save himself from face planting. He takes a few seconds to spit and cough out water in between deep gasping breaths.

“Whu’ th’ fu’-” Barnes slurred before heaving out a last bit of water speckled with bits of ice and coughing.

He too promptly collapsed, this time with his face pressed into cold cement covered in water.

“ _ They're alive! Oh my god, they’re all still alive! _ ” The doctor shouted.

* * *

Phil sat in the hospital room of Captain Rogers, Agent Carter, and Sergeant Barnes, feeling dazed and kind of cheated, for some reason.

They were still pale and borderline hypothermic, but now safely in a stable zone with color returning to white cheeks.

Slow even heart rates beeped from three separate monitors.

Phil blew out a breath and rubbed his face with both hands.

Fury appeared beside him, arms crossed and a scowl on his face. “This will be one for the books. We had to swear the coroners to secrecy for the moment, just like the rest of SHIELD.”

“Sir?” Phil asked, a little confused as to why.

“Public will go ape shit when they find out theses fuckers are alive.  Better to hold off until at least one of ‘em can hold a microphone and understand that they missed seventy years under the ice.”

Phil nodded. “How are you planning to integrate them into the new century, sir?”

“We’ll figure something out,” Fury shrugged. “Somebody suggested we build a mock hospital room from the forties.”

Phil hummed in agreement.

* * *

A week later, Nick scowled down at live security footage as three super-soldiers wonder where the others are and approach locked doors.

A week and five minutes later Fury was swearing up a storm.

A week and eight minutes later Barnes was whistling as he led Carter down a hall filled with unconscious agents like a true gentlemen.

A week and ten minutes later Phil watched with mouth agape as Rogers roars with a fury Phil hasn’t seen in his lifetime, demanding to know where Carter and Barnes are, and mowing through the best SHIELD trained agents like they’re nothing more than blades of grass against fucking super powered   _ weed whacker. _

A week and fifteen minutes later Fury shouted, “ _ WHOSE BRILLIANT FUCKING IDEA WAS IT TO KEEP THEM APART?! _ GET EVERYBODY TO STAND DOWN OR I’M GOING TO PUT THIS GUN UP YOUR ASS FOR GROSS INCOMPETENCE.” That bit was not, luckily, directed at him.

A week and thirty minutes later Phil was about to ask for an autograph when Barnes threatened to throw Barton's bottle of Jack Daniels at him and Rogers gave him a media smile from up in the rafters.

Phil still counted it as a pretty great day.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry about not updating Doing What I Can to Get Home (to you) recently, so I wrote this little intermission thing for people to enjoy until my awesome friend proofreads my fic.
> 
> enjoy!


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